Ms. Mackenzie Clark, 7th and 8th-grade ELA teacher, recently received funding from the Beaver County Educational Trust (BCET), which enabled her to pursue a larger project than the others she has done before. The Gallery Walk was on Tuesday, March 24, and families of the students were invited to view their kids’ and other students’ projects. The seventh-grade students who have her for her ELA classes are doing this project. The project centers on the book “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. The projects include a tri-fold, on which the students illustrate one of their personal memories, and a box, where the students place different objects to help convey the emotion shown on the tri-fold.
Some memories were about the beach and other fun vacations, while others were about spending time with friends and family; the only limit to what they could do was that it had to be school-appropriate. There was also an artist’s note that all students doing this project had to follow. It goes along with the rest of the project, but it provides more details, such as the student’s inspiration to choose that memory, some of the details and color choices behind it, etc. In addition, there was a pamphlet that the students had done before starting the rest of the project. It was basically a travel brochure, but for the community from the novel.
Some of the educational purposes of the project were to strengthen students’ emotional connection and comprehension of the novel, encourage symbolic thinking, critical analysis, and creativity. In addition to those, it also strengthens oral and written communication skills, promotes confidence through presentations, and fosters positive school and community relationships.
“I thought that it was important for you guys to be able to share your emotions and your memories. At first, I only wanted to do the emotion, but then I thought it needed to be connected to something, like how “The Giver” had the memory that you learned the emotion from. So I put the tri-fold together so that you could have your memory, and then your emotion in the box through sensory details, like texture and color and stuff like that,” Ms. Clark said.
The book titled “The Giver” is a dystopian novel of a community in which everyone is completely equal, and no one can have memories or see color, except for one person.
“‘The Giver’ was one of my favorite books that I read growing up. I read it in 7th grade. I loved the book, I thought that it opened my eyes to symbolism and all of this like dystopian genre, which I think is really cool, and there’s so many more books that you’ll come across in the future, that talk about dystopians, and I think it’s important that we talk about it. “The Giver” is like a classic that you guys can relate to because it’s around the same age, so putting yourself in the shoes of Jonas and pretending, okay, what would this be like if I had to live in this society,” Ms. Clark, said.
Jonas is the main character of the novel, and he is around the same age as most middle schoolers. He has already been assigned a job, and he has to finish it.
“[What was your memory about, and why?]A beach, because I was with my family.[What emotion was displayed and how?] Thrilled, because I had fun,” Kamden Kuntz (7), said.
